Friday, April 30, 2010

do eldar jetbikes have hit and run? I don't think they do but played a game tonight where the dude was pretty sure they did.( he used hit and run with his seer council to stop from getting tar pitted by kroot) It was a laid back game and we were pressed for time so I was like, "alrighty"

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Drones don't have to be deployed with their "transports" and are jet pack equipped troops. So you could argue that your piranha squadron comes in as normal, but the drones are deep striking in.

I don't know what the usefulness of that is, but you can do that; technically.

Also, you can put krootox in devilfish. Krootox take up 2 infantry slots so the only way they can hop in at the beginning of the game is if you have 10 kroot and 1 krootox. Why you would do that I don't know, but you can.

and The Misty Mountain doubles tournament with my CSM buddy Sarafanknight. I am playing a practice game Thursday that will be interesting, if anyone wants to see THAT battle report let me know and I will try to get it posted Thursday night. (warning there will be a lot of proxies on the other team)

"And now I realized I'm a cheater because I only have one squad of troops because the Lesser Daemons don't count towards the FOC troop requirement" - Jimmy

My other buddy has the battle missions book so we rolled up a spear head with kill points. With so many melta guns in the CSM I was kind of worried, but it turns out the alternate title to this battle report could have been "Melta-Fail" It was improbable that the meltas would fail as often as they did, but it happens. The seeker alpha strike is giving me a lot of room to manuever, plus it's nice to take out a big chunk of your opponent's army before they get to use it. Lash is still scary though and I really wanted to shut down the psychic stuff as fast as I could.Let me know if there are any other questions or stuff you want to know about the battle, probably post some more this weekend maybe.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

1. Get a digital video camera. I got a Flip video camera. It is really affordable, idiot proof, and the software that is built into it helps you edit and upload your videos fairly easily. Of course you could use an old school camera but that is a lot more work, so for the purposes of this guide, I would say "how to post a video battle report from a digital camera"

2. Record a video. In January I went to a tournament at Tower Games in Minneapolis. It was a lot of fun, and I recorded all of my games using the Flip. I thought I would post them up and wahoo it would be sweet! Well, I am a procrastinator, but also I had no format for how I was going to narrate the video and I didn't have time to do most of the recording because the game time was limited. I had one of my friends record the video but since there were two of us playing games, we didn't get a solid feel for what was going on. Which leads me to my next point.

3. Plan ahead! What part of each turn are you going to take video, who is going to do it, and how long each set should be. Generally I would say take one after both sides have deployed, then at the end of each player's turn. It takes about 30 seconds to go over all the units on the table quickly and what has died. You can spend more time on any crazy things that have happened, or you can spend less time on a turn if it was super boring (like your Eldar friend's army was all in reserve on the first turn). Generally, it is good theatrics if you record the dice roll at the end of turn 5 to see if the game goes on or not, recap the basics and predict how future turns would have went if the game had not ended (or play out the following turns if they happen).

If your Battle Report looks like the one above, it won't make any sense to anyone viewing it (also I think i edited it wrong and there is a time traveling dreadnought in there that grows his arms back). I will post an actual report from a fake battle later after I mow the lawn and stuff, but right now I am procrastinating mowing the lawn by doing this :)

Make sure that the recorder person knows what they are supposed to do and make sure you have enough time to actually spend recording pieces of the battle. In a tournament setting I would recommend having a dedicated "videographer" because you will be spending too much time on tactics, moving guys around and rolling dice. In a more relaxed setting you can take the time to explain your tactics or thoughts as the battle develops.

(Yes this is all still part of step 3: Plan ahead) When you are speaking think about what you are saying before you say it, filling up the audio with "ummm" uhhh" and "like" makes you sound retarded. It is still stuff that I work on, but it is a good thing to keep in mind, and to keep the flow of the battle report smooth.

Hopefully I can follow my own rules and post up some more sensible battle reports, I really like watching battle vids, and I hope I can post some good ones.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

in prep for the 1750 tournament coming up I have been working on some different ideas. Namely, missile spam. Now this list isn't as crazy as you could go with seeker missiles, but it has enough for 2 turns of alpha striking with 12 pathfinders and a skyray.

All vehicles have a D-pod (the P squad only has 1) and each vehicle other than the skyray has 2 seekers on it. This equals 16 seeker missiles, and 14 markerlights.

What I am gonna do with this list is pick one thing I don't want to deal with, and blast the bejeezus out of it. I am tempted to run 2 skyrays, but right now i think i would rather have the mobile railgun.

The whole basis of the army is that the suits, pathfinders and tanks all shoot at 1 thing until it is dead. with 36" ranges on both the markerlights and missile pods they should all be able to shoot the same thing.

I see the shooting phase going like this:

Pick a unit, for the sake of argument let's say there are 5 plague marines in a rhino with a sorcerer who has lash.

First shoot at the transport with one squad of death rains, if they fail to pop it use the second squad, if that fails, broadsides, then hammerhead.

Once it is open, marker light the squad up and shoot as many seekers as possible, assuming average rolls it will be about 7 between the two pathfinder units and the skyray. let's say 6 missiles connect, S8 is insta kill for plaguemarines (they are T5 but for the purposes of instakill they are T4 which means no FNP) and with AP3, see ya later bye marines. Let's then say that the sorcerer passed his invul save, well you still have your HQ to shoot with as well as the 2 broadsides.

Ideally you will blow up that target sooner with less firepower, but even if it takes everything in your army, you still don't have to worry about those plague marines or that sorceror, thus completely changing how your opponent is viewing the game.

A lot of the time people want to go second because they get the last say. With this army going first is most beneficial because you want to deny your opponent the ability to use key items that his or her army is probably based around. (lash, fortune, hive commander, other psychic powers, orders, etc)

Removing that "fun feature" will be a psychological victory and force your opponent to react to the fact that they are starting the game with 325 points less than they thought they were (in the example of the plague marines with sor in rhino)

Also they don't get to rely on their "trick"Obviously deployment changes based on whether you are going first or second, but due to the pathfinder's scout move you can still get to the best spot after your enemy has deployed so that both pathfinder units can shoot at the same target.

The main change for me in this list (besides the missile crazyness) is that I don't take any fireknives and I have 3 units of 10 kroot total. I used to never take kroot, but they are pretty cheap, can outflank, and have good charge stats (well, good enough to tie up oblits anyway) Plus they are a troop choice which means in 66% of the games my opponent HAS to pay attention to them. With 5 troop choices in 1750 I should be able to get some good positioning for holding objectives.

I am kind of sad about the fireknives, but they always get me into trouble. I think it is the mentality of "well I paid 20 points for the dang gun I better get as many shots out of it as i can" so instead of safely using them i used them very aggressively and they ended up dying around turn 3 or 4 on a regular basis. When I started using Deathrains I found that they lasted until at least turn 4 and most of the time until the match was over. They hit more often at a higher strength and a farther range, I think that i will have to run deathrains for a while until GW makes them assault 2 in the 5th edition tau codex (come on R'myr, share your gun tech with all your normal troopers, they have been working so hard!)

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

i can't turn the link into a word because i don't have magic Tron powers, or because i refuse to read the instructions.

Anywho...

It's up, go there and ask some questions. If you don't know what questions to ask try these:

How do I effectively use Vespid?

How do flechette dischargers work in a squadron of piranhas?

Why is Shas'O Rymr so awesome?

Why is a Baal Predator cheaper than an Ionhead?

What are are the suit configuration Monikers?

Is it worth 130 points to take a unit of 10 Kroot with 10 kroot hounds?

P.S. I can answer the last one, YES if you convert the kroot hounds yourself, I do not like the look of the current models because there are not a lot of variety, but you can indeed get some green stuff and change them up to look super cool, preferably eating marine scout arms!

Monday, April 5, 2010

The debate: should I take a Skyray or a 2nd Railhead in my current 1750 list? I am pretty much 85% decided that I am going to take a Skyray, but I would like to open it up to discussion and will also drop by in other blogs to see what people have to say. Here is my brief opinion:

Skyrays have 2 BS 4 markerlights on a mobile FA 13 platform that has cover saves against anything greater than 12" away and it is a skimmer.

I do have a lot of markerlights in my list, but then again I want to be using markerlights every single turn.

I think a Skyray will be able to support my army by making it shoot better, where as a Railhead supports an army by taking a lot of fire and every couple of turns blowing up a tank.

I already have 1 Railhead, and 2 broadsides in my heavy support FOC. I never leave home without a Railhead. I am just saying i think it can be beneficial to my army to have extra markerlights so that I can def kill at least 1 enemy unit each turn.

With good deployment and proper postioning anything that I am shooting at will not have a cover save and the units I am shooting with will all be BS 5. That is the idea anyways.

with 15 marker lights (13 at BS 3 and 2 at BS 4) I should be able to accomplish that.